When I left, I understood a shard of human grief. Not the pining or the despair. But that bone-deep craving to spend a moment longer with someone.
4
NIGHT
I would not have you any other way.
Above me, the sky was on fire. The sun’s last rays illuminated the land, but the light stretched thin and haggard. I hugged my bright red knees to my chest. I glanced hopefully at my skin, searching for a telltale stain of blue. Nothing. I sighed. There were still hours left until nightfall. I walked to the glass garden right outside my grove and sat in the middle of its wonder. Around me, flat flames burned inside the translucent petals. Light crested off crystal buds, dancing from flower to flower before breaking on the inside of a garnet lotus. When the light broke, all I could think of was how every piece of this garden had been crafted from a shard of hope. A gardener long dead had hoped that someone he loved would see how every blossom and beauty was for her alone. And the Dharma Raja had remade that. For me. Hope—that colorlesslight—snuck into the fissures of my thoughts and bloomed. But what that hope wanted to grow into, I couldn’t quite name.
“I have so much to tell you!” hollered a voice from outside the grove.
I leapt to my feet in time to see Nritti gliding toward me. She stopped short at the sight of the glass garden.
“What is that?” she asked, frowning.
“A gift.”
“Fromwho?”
“Not important.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re the one who ran—”
“Flew,” she corrected.
“Flewinto my grove about having so much to tell me. You first.”
I still wasn’t sure whether I would tell her about the Dharma Raja or not. I still wasn’t sure what it meant. The garden was a beautiful and thoughtful present, but it wasn’t a vow. And I wouldn’t marry without love. And it’s not like Ilovedhim. I hardly knew him.
Having sufficiently talked myself out of revealing anything, I fixed Nritti with an expectant stare.
“I saw Vanaj yesterday,” she said.
The blind princeling. I nodded.
“He is like… a cold winter breeze when you need it the most on a summer night.”
“Did you tell him that?” I cringed. “If I were Vanaj, I’d wish I was deaf instead.”
Nritti smacked my arm. “I am sharing my emotions!”
“Could you do it without bad metaphor?”
She exhaled. “I like him. He is sweet. Kind. Funny. Helistenstome the way no one else has.” Nritti darted a glance to me. “Well. Notno one.”
“I understand that,” I said softly. “I’m happy for you, sister.”
“I thought… I thought maybe you wouldn’t be.”
“Why?”
“Because then we’ll spend less time together and I know that it can be too quiet for you here, by yourself. And what if you’re in the Night Bazaar and I’m not there? Who is going to decipher your foul sense of humor?”
I smiled even though her words stung. “Don’t worry about me. Less time together isn’t no time at all. And besides, we have an infinite amount of time.”
I didn’t tell her the other thought weighing in my head. Vanaj was a mortal, with a mortal’s life span. Many kings lived until they were as old as eight hundred, but they always died in the end. No matter how much she loved him, they were already running out of time together.
